A while ago I had posted on this blog about a UD musical “Light up the Land”. At the time we did not have a link to the video, but now you can see it for yourself in our listing of Special Collections. So as the cold winter nights start to creep in, you can curl up to your computer and see what all the hoopla was about back in 1952. It quite literally had a cast of thousands! It...
A few pics from past Halloween fun-but first a word from our sponsor: From Mercy College of Detroit 1978: From University of Detroit 1977: Have a safe and happy Halloween!...
In the previous blog, while I was researching the boxing program, I came across some articles about the UD Polo team. It was also a very short lived program that lasted about two years from 1933 to about 1935. Unlike the boxing program, they actually played a few games with other polo teams. In the initial call to see if anyone had an interest in becoming a team member, twenty-two students responded. The first game was played as part of...
Technical Knockout: When a fighter is taking too much punishment and the referee stops the bout without completing a ten-count. Once upon a time, the University of Detroit tried to start a program for boxing. They had a number of students express an interest, but it does not appear that it ever got off the ground except on an informal basis. Outside of the 1931 Tower yearbook, only a couple of articles about the boxing program can be found in...
Whenever a UDMercy alumni comes back for a visit, they are amazed at how much the library has changed since they were students. Take a look at what they would remember back around 1960 and compare how things look now. More than just the physical appearances have changed. Up until 1964, the library books were classified in the Dewey Decimal system. When it was decided to convert all the books to the LC or Library of Congress system of classification,...
There was a recent article in the Detroit Free Press about one of the Boblo boats shipping out to be restored. It would then be sent to New York state and returned to service in the Hudson River Valley, probably never to be seen on by Detroiters on the Detroit River again. The SS Columbia spent most of its 112 years carrying metro Detroiters back and forth from Boblo Island. Its sister ship, the SS. Ste. Claire, is still here,...
There was an article about a recent auction of Harry Houdini’s items in the local paper. One of the items that was talked about caught my eye: “Houdini’s Society of American Magicians membership card signed by him sold for $7,000…” (Detroit News, September 6, 2014). I knew in our autograph file we had a file on Houdini, but I did not know what was in the file. First chance I got, I had to check. Imagine my disappointment when I...
Now that football season is upon us, a time take a look back at the early teams of the University of Detroit. Football was such a big part of the university that one of the first buildings that was constructed on the McNichols campus was a football stadium. But the move to the McNichols campus did not take place until 1922 and there was no space on Jefferson Avenue where the school was located to play home games. They sometimes...
Freshmen today don’t know how lucky they are that they don’t have to put up with some of the restrictions that past UD freshmen had to follow. The most noticeable was the rule that they had to wear these caps (tams for girls) or “pots” as they were sometimes called, whenever they were on campus. This tradition was around from the early 1900′s until about 1960. The rules may have changed over the years, for example the 1930 freshman could...
Ever wonder why there is such a huge open area in the engineering building? Well, you need a pretty big space if you are going to be working on airplanes-even a small one. The University of Detroit was the first university to offer a complete five-year program leading to a degree in aeronautical engineering in 1921. The new department had the backing of the United States Government, Aerial League of America and Detroit Chamber of Commerce. During World War II,...
